Emerson King

Period 1
Ch. 21

1. What factors weakened the West in the face of Italian fascism and German Nazism?
Dictators were encouraged by Western pacifism (peace, regardless of consequences)
and their acceptance of German claims. A main reason was war losses; with 1.4 million dead,
France turned to the Maginot Line Mentality, security behind its border fortress; also,
French fascism was developing. British fears led to Chamberlains appeasement of Hitler.
FDR condemned aggression, but many isolationists in the US opposed any political
involvement in Europe. USSR resentment of anti-Bolshevik feelings, their desire to revise
borders (to 1914), and fear of German attack led to their call for collective security and
Popular Fronts against Hitler. But European nations, distrusting Soviet motives, failed to
respond.
The result was a weakness that Hitler played on cleverly, using Western hopes/fears to
gain his goals. In 1933, Germany pulled out of the League; in 1934, Hitler attempted the
forbidden Anschluss with Austria--to be stopped only by the anger of Mussolini, who formed
the Stresa Front (with Britain and France) against Germany. In 1935, Hitler began rearming
Germany, and in 1936 he militarized the Rhineland; the West did nothing. In 1938 he gained
Mussolinis support and marched into Austria in March. He then manipulated the summer
crisis over the Sudetenland. Italy, which had gained no colonies at Versailles, in 1935
attacked Ethiopia. The League imposed economic sanctions, but refused to include oil
(fearing to upset the US) or to close the Suez Canal to Italian shipping.
In Spain, a new Republican government in 193l had begun reforms which angered the
Catholic Church and many nationalists. In the 1936 elections, a Popular Front government
won, leading to a right-wing insurrection led by conservative General Francisco Franco. The
rehearsal for WWII. France and Britain refused to help; only Russia sent aid, though
individuals from the US (3500) and Western Europe took part. Germany and Italy supported
Franco with troops and arms, beginning the fascist partnership. Mussolini was motivated by
anger; his Stresa partners had objected to his Ethiopian attack. The final result was the
Rome-Berlin Anti-Comintern Axis. In 1937 the Japanese launched a full-scale attack on
China. In spite of US support for strong, unified action, the League of Nations acted
ineffectually. Japan then made the Axis powers a threesome.

Appeasement failed
Hitler pulled out of the League, and began rearming Germany
Allied with Benito Mussolini
Hitler & Mussolini supported the Spanish civil war to test their modern weapons.

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2. Assess the impact of the attempts at appeasing the revisionist powers and their
ambitions.
Revisionist nations were dissatisfied with the Treaty of Versailles--Germany, Italy,
Japan, and the USSR. Other major powers were satisfied (status quo), but lacked faith in its
conditions and were unwilling to risk war to uphold the Treaty. The culminating crisis of the
pre-war period was Czechoslovakia, with three million dissatisfied Sudeten Germans
occupying a key border zone. Czech was a strategic keystone of the defense against
Germany, and was allied to both France and the USSR. It had a strong army, good munitions,
good fortification; it had the Little Entente alliance with Yugoslavia and Rumania. Nazi
agitation in the Sudetenland brought a brief March crisis; the British began negotiations in
the summer. The crisis seemed to threaten war when Hitler announced a conference to be
held in Munich with Mussolini, Daladier, and Chamberlain--but no Soviets. Hitlers terms
were accepted in September and the Czechs forced to agree; left defenseless, all Czech fell
without a shot fired in March, 1939. Chamberlain returned to Britain with peace in our
time. Since that time, Munich and Chamberlain have been twin symbols of the evils of
appeasement. The West was unprepared to fight, was overawed at German power, and was
uncertain of their own moral cause. Hitler now seized Memel and claimed full right to the
Polish Corridor and the port of Danzig; his partner Mussolini crossed the Adriatic to attack
Albania. It was now clear that appeasement was a vain hope. Britain guaranteed to defend
Poland, and attempted to ally with the USSR. The USSR, seeing western actions as only a
ploy to bring about a German-Soviet war, began negotiations which culminated in late
August in the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact. One week later, Poland was invaded and
World War II had begun.
3. Describe the early successes of the Axis powers, which included the fall of France
Hitler buried Poland in a one-month blitzkrieg; the USSR moved at the same time to take
eastern Poland and the Baltic republics. Finland resisted Soviet demands and the result was
war in November, with the USSR expelled from the League. [Finland lost the war.] Action
in the west was termed the Phony War: troops faced each other across the Maginot and
Siegfried Lines. But the Blitzkrieg resumed in April. Denmark fell in hours, followed several
weeks later by Norway. The Wehrmacht then sped through the Low Countries and into
France, successfully completing the WWI Schlieffen Plan and cutting off the British forces-which were evacuated in the Miracle of Dunkirk. France signed an armistice on June 22-having lacked armor, an air force--or unity. Northern France was occupied, with Vichy
France in the south under collaborationist forces led by General Petain (a hero of WWI).
Italy also attacked France--and later Greece and north Africa. Germany proceeded to create a
New Order in the style of Napoleon, running western Europe to coordinate and exploit
resources, industry, and labor.

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4. Analyze the global scale of destruction that the war entailed both in terms of loss of life
and economic damage.
Only Britain held out, under Churchill--who immediately sought US help. Interventionists
wanted war to destroy fascism, but isolationism remained strong. FDR amended the
Neutrality Acts allowing the US to become the arsenal of democracy to secure the Four
Freedoms. He made the Destroyer-Base deal (an executive agreement, not requiring
Congressional approval) in 1940 (50 over-age destroyers in exchange for US use of British
Caribbean bases) and Lend-Lease in 1941, on the premise that it was only neighborly to loan
Britain the means to keep fighting to stop fascism. The US began to build an army with
conscription. The US occupied bases in Greenland and Iceland to ease the problems of
Britain in securing its life-line to the West. Britain soon faced the Battle of Britain, with
German bombing raids--but the RAF controlled the air: use of radar and information
provided due to the breaking of the German secret codes. Britain was disrupted, but far from
defeated.
5. Describe how the German invasion of Russia and the involvement of the United States
shifted the course of the war.
Meanwhile, there was an uneasy peace in the East, with the Germans upset over Russ moves
into the Baltic and Balkans. By 1941, Hitler had made alliances with Rumania, Bulgaria, and
Hungary; his goal was to take over the Ukraine. He began the war with a sudden blitzkrieg
on June 22, quickly besieging Leningrad and moving on Sebastopol in the Crimea and on
Moscow. Russian resistance proved stubborn; the attack had been delayed a month while
Hitler cleaned up Mussolinis mess in Greece and took Crete from Britain. The delay, plus an
early winter, aided the Soviets in defeating the Nazi assault in a counterattack. In 1942 Hitler
renewed his attack, taking the Crimea and moving on Stalingrad, while continuing the attack
on Moscow and besieging Leningrad. Division of forces, in combination with the Soviet
scorched earth policy and the growing partisan resistance behind the lines, ultimately
made possible a stalemate that in 1943 and 1944 was turned into a rout. Another important
reason for failure was the German treatment of Russians as untermenschen (sub-human).
6. To what extent was the unified Allied strategy successful against the Axis, first in North Africa,
Sicily, and at Stalingrad, then in Europe and the Pacific?
By 1942 the Grand Alliance/United Nations was forming, with 26 nations declared against the
Axis. Britain and the US pooled forces under a combined Chiefs of Staff, with coordinated strategy. The
decision was made to give the Far East second priority; command was given to General MacArthur, with
Admiral Nimitz controlling the Pacific fleet, and with a separate China-India-Burma command. The
Battle of the Coral Sea held the Japanese to existing gains in early 1942, and in June the decisive Battle
of Midway destroyed any Japanese hopes. MacArthurs idea of island hopping across the Pacific
toward Japan began with Guadalcanal (1942) and Tarawa (1943), but a bloody struggle remained.
In Europe the western Allies continued with an air war rather than the second front desired by
Stalin. The US was still mobilizing and the Nazi sub packs took a huge toll of Atlantic shipping--until
the Allies won the Battle of the Atlantic (using sonar and Jeep Carriers) in 1943. In November of

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1942 the US launched an amphibious assault on Vichy French North Africa against limited resistance.
DeGaulle, the Free French leader, was ignored by FDR and Churchill. The Germans occupied all
France after French sailors in Toulon scuttled their fleet. Eisenhower moved east toward Tunisia while
the British, who had stopped Rommel at the decisive Battle of El Alamein, moved westward under
General Montgomery. At the same time the Russians were defeating the Germans at Stalingrad, aided
greatly by US Lend-Lease, with trucks, machinery, and war supplies. By early 1943 a major bag of
German and Italian troops were cut-off in Tunisia. Soon western forces captured Sicily and invaded
southern Italy. The Italians threw out Mussolini, and the new Italian government joined the Allies.
Germany was forced to commit over 2 million men to the defense of the Italian peninsula until the end
of the war.
Germany now prepared Festung Europa, meaning fortress Europe for the expected Allied
invasion. Churchill opposed a cross-Channel invasion in 1943 (to weaken the USSR?), and the US
reluctantly agreed to delay until late spring of 1944. After months of detailed planning, 10,000 planes,
400 ships, and 150,000 men moved into action on D-Day, the 6th of June. By September, Allied forces
were in Germany. Hitler attempted an abortive counter-attack--the Battle of the Bulge, in December,
1944-- through the Ardennes Forest. The Rhine was crossed in March, in spite of the German use of the
V-2 Vengeance Weapon. A minor incident was the revenge bombing of the city of Dresden by 1000
British and American bombers--resulting in a firestorm that perhaps killed as many as 100,000. The
Russian advance had been briefly stopped in Poland, a move perhaps premeditated by the Russians. The
Russian advance led to a rising of the Warsaw resistance fighters; when Russian forces stopped at the
Vistula, the Germans crushed the resistance (led by anti-Communists). The Russians moved quickly to
liberate Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary.
The Germans stopped the Russians at the Oder, but US forces had stopped at the Elbe to allow
the Russians to capture Berlin. Thus in 1945 the Russians controlled all major capitals of Eastern
Europe. Germany surrendered on May 8, two weeks after Hitlers suicide. Soon the world had full proof
of the horrors of Nazi rule--from atrocities like Lidice, Czechoslovakia where a whole village was
executed in reprisal for the attack on a Nazi leader, to the mass extermination centers of Auschwitz,
Dachau, Treblinka, Buchenwald, where as many as 6 million Jews, Gypsies, Poles, Russians, and other
minorities had died in Hitlers genocidal Final Solution.
The war in the Pacific consisted of a series of amphibious assaults on islands such as
Guadalcanal(1942) and Tarawa (1943) and carrier group assaults on strong points such as Truk to
weaken the Japanese navy and naval air force. In 1944 the US returned to the Philippines, narrowly
dodging a bulletin the Battle of the Philippine Seas. In early 1945 the marines captured the island of
Iwo Jima, the army was bogged down on Okinawa, where the navy faced kamikazis; but the end was in
sight. The US launched B-29 raids from Saipan (Marianas) and Okinawa, with fighter and rescue planes
located on Iwo Jima. Japan was shattered, but the Allies insisted on face-destroying unconditional
surrender. The result was the bombing of Hiroshima (8/6) and Nagasaki (8/9). Fulfilling promises made
at Yalta and Potsdam, the USSR declared war on August 8. V-J Day followed soon. Deaths in the
WWII are estimated at 45 million, of whom two-thirds were civilians
7. Describe the systematic genocide of Jews and others by the Nazis, now referred to as the Holocaust
The Holocaust was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of
others during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi Germany, led
by Adolf Hitler, throughout Nazi-occupied territory. Of the nine million Jews who had resided in Europe
before the Holocaust, approximately two-thirds perished. More than one million Jewish children were
killed in the Holocaust, as were approximately two million Jewish women and three million Jewish men.

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Broad definitions of the Holocaust include the Nazis' genocide of millions of people in other
groups, including Romani (more commonly known in English by the exonym "Gypsies"), Sinti, Soviet
prisoners war, Polish and Soviet Civilians, homosexuals, people with disabilities, Jehovah's
Witnesses and other political and religious opponents, which occurred regardless of whether they were
of German or non-German ethnic origin. Using this definition, the total number of civilians murdered by
the Nazis is between 10 million and 11 million (around 5.7 million Jews and an equal number of nonJews) The mini-series Holocaust is credited with introducing the term into common parlance after 1978.
The persecution and genocide were carried out in stages. Various legislation to remove the Jews
from civil society, predominantly the Nuremberg Laws, was enacted in Nazi Germany years before the
outbreak of World War II. Concentration camps were established in which inmates were used as slave
labor until they died of exhaustion or disease. Where the Third Reich conquered new territory in eastern
Europe, specialized units called Einsatzgruppen murdered Jews and political opponents in mass
shootings. The Third Reich required Jews and Romani to be confined in overcrowded ghettos before
being transported by freight train to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, the
majority of them were systematically killed in gas chambers.
Every arm of Nazi Germany's bureaucracy was involved in the logistics that led to the genocides,
turning the Third Reich into what one Holocaust scholar has called "a genocidal state". Opinions differ
on how much the civilian population of Germany knew about the government conspiracy against the
Jewish population. Most historians claim that the civilian population was unaware of the atrocities that
were carried out, especially in the extermination camps, which were located outside of Germany
in Nazi-occupied Europe. Other historians, however, claims that the government openly announced the
conspiracy through the media, and that civilians were aware of its every aspect except for the use of gas
chambers. Significant historical evidence points to the idea that the vast majority of Holocaust victims,
prior to their deportation to concentration camps, were either unaware of the fate that awaited them, or
were in disbelief; they honestly believed that they were to be resettled.
8. For what reasons was the decision made by the United States to use the atomic bomb against
Japan, and with what results?
The United States dropped the atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6th, 1945.
The city had a population of about 348,000; 78,000 lives were lost immediately as a result of the
explosion. The city was destroyed. Thousands of others were injured or suffered long-term effects of
radiation. Two days later, the Soviet Union, which had pledged to enter the conflict in the East within
three months after the surrender of Germany, declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria. On August
9th 1945, the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, killing tens of thousands more.
The Japanese eventually surrendered on August 15th. On September 2nd, the formal surrender was
signed. The emperor was permitted to remain as head of state, but Japan was placed under a United
States army occupation. Meanwhile, the atomic bomb, like the death camps of the Holocaust, soon
became another haunting memory and symbol of the new forms of violence and mass destruction that a
staggeringly costly global war had bestowed upon to humanity.
9. Assess the importance of the agreements at Yalta and Potsdam, where the United States, Britain,
and the Soviet Union disputed the boundaries and government of Poland, and the division and
government of Germany.
There was no clear-cut peace settlement, though terms gradually emerged, resulting first from
conferences and then de facto agreements. The Atlantic Charter set the basic US-GB goals in 1941:

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sovereign rights of nations, equal access to world trade, increased security (including the famous four
freedoms). At Casablanca in 1943 unconditional surrender was set as a goal, to avoid the ambiguity of
defeat in 1918. The Teheran Conference of l943 provided the first meeting of Roosevelt, Churchill, and
Stalin--and began plans for post-war Germany and an international organization. FDR wanted to
postpone tough decisions to preserve unity; Churchill was more anxious to get key promises from Stalin.
The West pledged a Normandy invasion as soon as possible, and the Russ pledged an offensive. No
political agreements were made, virtually giving hegemony over East Europe to the USSR.
The most important war-time conference was held at Yalta in the Crimea in February of 1945,
while US troops were still cleaning up the Bulge and Russian troops were moving rapidly through east
Europe. Stalin promised to allow free elections to provide representative, provisional governments in
East Europe; USSR would get 1/2 of reparations from Germany. Stalin also agreed to enter the war with
Japan within 3
months of the defeat of Germany--in exchange for the other 1/2 of Sakhalin, the Kurile Islands,
dominance over Mongolia, and Manchurian concessions lost to Japan in 1905. Both sides agreed to a
UN, with a Security Council of the Big Five, each with veto power, and a General Assembly where the
USSR would have three votes. Basically, all the concessions were unnecessary (with hindsight of
20/20); FDR believed help was needed to defeat Japan. Churchill was more anxious for frank political
divisions,
with spheres of influence for each power; Roosevelt believed concessions would help post-war harmony.
Shortly after the defeat of Germany the Potsdam Conference was held (July, 1945). FDR had
died and the US was represented by Truman; Churchill opened the conference but was defeated in the
first British post-war elections and was replaced by Clement Atlee; and Stalin represented the USSR.
Disagreement was already deepening, but the two camps agreed on post war disarmament, deNazification, and demilitarization of Germany; a stripping of reparations in kind from Germany, with
the Soviets given additional materiel from the West. Poland gained territory in the West; Russian areas
of Poland in the east were returned, and German East Prussia was given to the USSR. Millions of
Germans were driven from their homes in Poland and the Sudetenland and resettled in the new
Germany.

10. Assess the importance of the founding of the United Nations.

The participants of World War II agreed to create a postwar international organization called the
United Nations. Roosevelt believed it essential to win the Soviets over to the idea of an international
organization. He was convinced that the Great Powers, cooperating within the framework of the United
Nations and acting as an international police, could preserve the future peace and security of the world.
No less than Stalin or Churchill, he emphasized the importance of the Great Powers in the new
organization, although he accepted a dignified role for the smaller nations as well. All agreed that each
of the Great Powers, the permanent members of the new organizations Security Council,
would have a veto in important decisions. The Soviets pressed for 16 votes in the General Assembly of
the new organization, arguing that their constitution gave sovereign rights to each of their then 16
constituent republics and that the British dominions would each have a seat. In the interests of harmony,
they were given three.